Any one have advice for emotional scenes in comics?

[Momomori]

Sorry for the hard question but, I was wondering if anyone had any advice for making the reader cry when I want them to? Like any key elements that will make the reader cry in a tragic scene. (the real struggle for me is the fact that the only two characters in the comic are mute)

[joannekwan]

Well, people will only ever get emotional when you've given them a reason to be invested in the characters. You can't just introduce a character, have something tragic happen to them and expect the audience to cry over it. You need to build up those characters, establish connections between them and other characters, really show the audience who these people are and what they do or don't mean to one another.

[AnnaLandin]

There is no guaranteed way to make your readers cry when you want them to. It's not like there's a box of story-elements you can just reach into that says "Crying" on it. And people get emotional over different things, so it can be hard to predict what they'll react to anyway.

However, there are a few things you can do to make your emotional scenes perhaps impact better. And this goes for emotional scenes in general, not just tragedy.

Make the readers invested in the characters
Spend time in the story on making your readers familiar with a character, and give them reasons to care. Maybe your character is on some kind of important mission, and if they fail something bad will happen; your readers will care about the success of the mission. Craft characters that have something they care about - that way, readers will have a higher chance of caring about them.

Raise the stakes
So your character has an important mission, and failure means bad things happening. How can you turn that into an emotionally impactful scene?

Threaten failure.

Give your character a challenge to their mission. Maybe someone steps in and tries to stop them, maybe they lose something important that could have helped them, maybe they tried to complete their mission and failed for some reason, and now they have to race against time to get to try again.

Deliver on your promises
If you've been threatening failure, have it happen. If you've been writing the story in such a way that one character has been in mortal danger for a long time - maybe someone is out to kill them? - then deliver on that. Have the trap snap shut.

A little goes a long way
There's a scene in the absolute travesty that is the live-action DragonBall movie, in which Goku falls to his knees beside the corpse of his grandfather - whom we've, uh, hardly seen on screen ^_^; - and raises his hands to the sky, screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of his lungs. It's terrible, it's badly written, and it's horrendously over-acted - and as a result, I just don't care.

Sometimes, you get a bigger emotional impact if you do something small. Sometimes a bundle of flowers on a gravestone is more emotional than someone clinging to a dead body bawling their eyes out.

[JigokuNeko]

Making readers cry is actually easier than making them laugh out loud. I've gathered plenty reader tears myself so here are some pointers from personal experience:

1) Authenticity. If it doesn't make you as the author sad, chances are it won't move anyone else. When you're writing a sad scene you're putting part of your own sadness in it, something that moves you personally. Readers pick up on non-authentic tear-jerker scenes surprisingly easy!

2) Timing. You should give the reader time to get to know your characters. At the beginning of the story, your readers don't know your characters from a bar of soap. Something bad happening to them at that point is only mildly interesting, yawn~. If they've followed them through up and downs and grown attached to them then the same event becomes tragic.

3) Unfairness. Life is not fair. If life is not fair to a beloved character then that is bound to get emotional. If a character struggled for something and still loses then those who followed them throughout the journey will feel that burn. (lol, pun intended)

4) Everyone cries when a pet dies. Not everyone cries when a kid dies. Children characters have a tendency to get really annoying so making them sympathetic is often much harder than it is for adult characters. On the other hand, Fluffy dying will always get the waterworks.

5) Shock value in itself is worthless. The tragic event should make ripples (or even tsunamis) in the other characters' lives. If everything returns to normal right away readers will feel both cheated and disappointed and for good reason! Tragic events often scar people for life, the story should reflect that as well.

[KSlinger]

Tough one but I'll try and explain what I think helps:

Emotional investment in the character witnessing the scene, not the victim themselves

This has already been mentioned, but by the time my emotional scene came along we were already invested in Jed, the main character and the one witnessing the scene. We knew by that point that he was a good person (at least in the sense that he's kind enough to help a stranger and have a good sense of humour about it) so as a very simply storytelling tool he acts as a clear indicator of how the reader is supposed to be feeling at any given time. Obviously how you set up your witness is a big deal and seeing a character display emotions, do things, and say things they never have before simply because they can't contain their emotions is pretty intense.

Empathy from one character and another

I believe seeing anyone try to provide comfort to someone under duress invokes a sense of something in a healthy human being. Don't underestimate the power of a few gentle words or a hand on someone's shoulder. Even a secret wink to provide confidence is an expression of empathy and seeing those small displays really resonates with people.

Draping a blanket over someone who's sleeping, walking away from the sound of someone sobbing because you know they value privacy, telling a child a funny story to distract them from something terrible going on outside-- these actions can be as big or small as you like but working them into emotional scenes is a great way of reminding people who it is that needs help at that point in time.

Remember that scene from Good Will Hunting? You probably know the one I mean, it's a heart breaker, and there are some really subtle moments of comfort giving shown there.

Expressions

Pretty obvious, this one, but the better you are at communicating a feeling outside of 'I am upset' the easier it will be for readers to understand the depth of someone's feeling.

Character awareness

I see a lot of betrayal scenes happening these days where someone intentionally or unintentionally back stabs someone else and while those all well and good I've always found, personally, that the most gut wrenching of scenes are those in which the character knows what's coming and simply has to accept it. I find it appeals to a very specific type of dread and anxiety- the kind you share with a school mate when you realise you've been caught red handed. There's something very humanising about seeing someone acknowledge they've made a mistake and keep a stiff upper lip as they deal with the consequences- whatever they may be- and even more in seeing them not keep a stiff upper lip and fight desperately to fix things until the very end. Knowing someone will betray you, knowing you're going to die, knowing you're going to lose someone else, knowing you can't escape, knowing you can't deny it, knowing you can't take it back, it's emotional TNT so play around with it and employ awareness to work with you in emotional scenes.

[Tentakustar]

I don't think there is any garentee way to make someone cry for an emotional part in your story. But you can maybe make them feel things. For me personally, digging deep inside yourself really helps. Feel the situation and get a feel of how powerful it could be. Know what your character is going through. Be in that moment with them. Cry... it sounds weird but you have to know how they feel. You are only person who can understand them better than they understand themselves. Know why that moment is so powerful to them. Because I your reader will definitely catch on and understand. Feel it in your stomach, feel it in your mind, feel it in your heart....

[TheVoidchildProject]

Most everything relevant has been said already. I'll only add that the aftermath of whatever is emotional is important. Oh so important!

I'll use the reboot of The Tomb Raider as an example. When (the new) Lara Croft kills someone for the first time, she nearly throws, hyperventilates, shakes and can barely speak. It's an effective scene (maybe not the most emotional, but it is noticeable and serves as a good example). In the very next gameplay scene she's toting guns and shooting fools like a seasoned veteran. Completely eradicating the impact of the previous scene. In my mind that ruined what might've been a pivotal moment for he character and he development.

I've read in an interview with th wonderful Rihanna Pratchett that there was some disconnect between the writers and the people who worked on the gameplay so I won't fault her too much for that.